top | item 22863774

(no title)

ponyfleisch | 5 years ago

Wow. A linguistical off-by-one bug. I have never noticed that before.

Interestingly, Wikipedia contradicts itself here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1600s

> The period from 1600 to 1699, synonymous with the 17th century

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17th_century

> The 17th century was the century that lasted from January 1, 1601, to December 31, 1700.

I think this is going to annoy me until I forget about it.

discuss

order

mcv|5 years ago

Never noticed it? This was a big topic around the turn of the millennium. Was the turn of the millennium the same as the turn of the odometer (2000) or was it the actual start of the third millennium AD (2001)?

ponyfleisch|5 years ago

Yes, I was aware that years not being zero-indexed can create confusion, but I never noticed this particular consequence of that.

Leherenn|5 years ago

Synonymous does not always mean "exactly the same", some times it's "nearly the same". Most synonyms have subtle nuance differences I would say.

In this case, if we are talking about hundred-year spans at once, a shift of 1 year is irrelevant, thus I would say "synonymous" is valid.

I hope this soothes your annoyance.

ponyfleisch|5 years ago

I get your point, but would you say "a 99 year period" is synonymous with "a century"?